14 Luglio
by la Domkova
Summary: This is the second. Emeraude and Clef having lunch in the gardens


Notes of the author: MKR and "Quattordici Luglio" doesn't belong to me, it belongs to me only the English translation of this song.

Heaven! My first fanfic without Fuu and Ferio!!

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**Quattordici Luglio**

I skim through my books searching an answer: from about four months Sephiro have some problem. Nothing of serious, it is obvious: some monster in more, in the southern regions doesn't rain from three months ago; among any villages there is attrition for the pastures' exploitation. The last time that I have seen such a thing has been when Jinko-hime was the Pillar, about 300 years ago: but Jinko-hime was ill. Emeraude-hime, instead, has always enjoyed of excellent health even if a cold has not saved up the Pillar. But a cold after one week has recovered. It must be something else, something that prevents Emeraude-hime to pray, that disturbs her thoughts. But what?

Maybe I have found the book that I searched... mmh, it won't come away...

An avalanche of heavy, threadbare and ancient volumes falls on my head. Sore, I emerge from the mountain and I cough: how much dust! But I don't have the time to dust the library. One moment: this is the perfect punishment for the Prince! If only he doesn't think about wander around like a common boy of 319 years...

" M-madoshi Clef?"

A shy voice says my name: on the threshold one of Emeraude-hime's ladies' companion watch me timorous. Always coughing, I dust my robe and I lean the book on the table. The lady breathes deeply and she approaches me with some footstep.

" Could I help you, Juliet?"

" N-no, I am here only for... Emeraude-hime wishes to have lunch with you: she waits you in the Pavilion of Rose within half hour. With permission."

Juliet bows and goes out. Heaven, is it already lunchtime? But above all, am I really so dreadful? It is true that Juliet is shy, but her behavior is exaggerated. I sigh and I make me more presentable before reach Hime-sama: surely she will tell me important things. 

_I watched her hands that teased insolent a false rose_

_and it was so sweet the way in which_

_she hides the embarrassment_

_while she spoke and smiled ironically_

_of her own misfortunes she held the low eyes_

The Pavilion of the Rose is situated in the gardens more secluded corner: some rosebushes climb up the thin, white carved marble columns and on the dome of iron and glass, the gorgeous white and pale pink roses spread their delicate fragrance. Emeraude-hime waits me watching the rosebud, white as snow, between her hands and murmurs something. A maid is arranging the dishes on the low table of lacquered wood: soup of shellfishes in white sauce, sweet-and-sour prawns, boiled salmon with vegetables, tart of blueberries and in the center of the table a basket with fresh fruit and a pitcher of white wine. I smile: seafood is Emeraude-hime's favorite food. Ah, I had forgot it: she has born and risen in Austina, between the sand and the sea running after the sea gull. 

Emeraude-hime looks me and smile. I approach her and greet her, and then I sit down on the pillows. We begin to eat without speak: I had not seen the canapé.

" Clef, I... "

I move the eyes from the prawn that I was about to bite to the face of Hime-sama: she tries to hide her embarrassment. She sighs and restarts to speak.

" Clef, what do you think about Sephiro? Answer me sincerely."

" It is the world in which I live, I love it much: each time that I must leave, I miss it."

" Ah, I understand."

Emeraude-hime looks at me and smile: funny, in mind comes the loving way in which her brother calls her, Emi-hime. We speak about this and that, then suddenly she fixes her eyes in mine and says:

" I have decided to evoke the Legendary Magic Knights."      

_I watched her hands that twisted_

_among the embroideries of a tablecloth_

_I was able barely to hold back the will_

_to grab them to attack her pain_

My eyes are wide, my mount half-open and the fork that I grasp fall noisily on the dish: do I have heard right?

" Eh? What?!"

" I have decided to evoke the Magic Knights, Madoshi Clef."

Emeraude-hime repeats with broken voice and I could see the tears in her eyes. She hides her delicate face between her hands, the bud lies on her lap.

" Try to understand me: I... I can't and won't keep on in this way! I-I tried hard, I applied myself with all my strengths, I assure you: but there has not succeeded."

Her cornflower eyes cuts up my soul: so sad, so desperate, so painfully sufferings. I sigh and try to calm her, to act as a paternal figure.

" What haven't you been able to do, Emeraude-hime? Why do you want to evoke the Knights of the legend?"

She looks at me sobbing; she then lowers her eyes and laughs without joy, ironic, trembling.

" I... I am in love and he loves me back. Clef, I swear it on this diadem that I wear: I have done the possible to avoid him, but each thing that I did to remove him from my heart, brought him near. I have tried to see the worse faults in him, but I saw only his esteems. I avoided to be in the places in which it is more probable meet him and I crossed him in the corridors."

I hand her a glass and she sip slowly the wine, she seems to be calm now: this is good, because now she is more owner of herself and she could explain me her situation, her problem. I drink too: I must try to check me, I must know, I must help Emeraude-hime and shout against her doesn't help.

_mixed with the incense the taste of a frugal meal_

_the memories stunned by the time_

_though being like to many and many other people_

_she was special... special_

The incense burns quietly in the small brazier of brass and the thin, pale blue yarn of smoke, which entwines in volutes and spreads out in ribbons resembles my thoughts: Emeraude-hime is in love.

Love. 

Love for me is a distant memory of youth, when I was still a student: I have learned what I know about this feeling from literature books. And from my old roommate, Cano: I don't see him from almost 600 years, who knows where he is now. From him I have learned that love is to own a woman and that each occasion was good: Cano spent whole nights explains me how choose the proper girl and how conquer her.

" You must adulate her always, old man: tell her that she is the most beautiful woman in Sephiro even if she has the face of a pig; if she lets her hair loose hair that you like simple girls and if, instead, she uses curl up them, that her curls drive you crazy. 

" One of the important things is the jealousy, you must it in the proper measure: the lack and the excess pushes your lover between the arms of an other man."

Cano had an idea too material of love, that's why I rolled under the covers and I told him good night.

On books I have learned that love is the purer, beautiful and human feeling that a man could feel, able to conduct him both to the blessedness and to the damnation. A feeling that raise the soul up to the supreme good and that makes it complete. So much light, so much joy, serene and inner peace. And at the same time obscurity, pain and suffering, tormented passion tear-soaked and oozing blood. A feeling that reflects the duplicity of man, being between light and obscurity.

Also the Pillar is a human being, it is natural that she is in love: nothing is more normal than a young woman -and gorgeous in addition- in love and of a man that loves her back. And how could anybody not love Emeraude Xepphirine, princess of Austina and Pillar of Sephiro? Don't love her would be a crime. Her love could be happy if our laws are different.

Assignment of the Pillar is support Sephiro, make it prosperous and in peace with her prayers. Her only duty is pray entirely for the stability of the planet and the common happiness.

This is what the teachers teach to our children: if we are happy we must thank the Pillar. But is the Pillar happy? Selfishly the people think only to his own interest, but also Emeraude-hime is a human being, a woman, and like that she too has right to be happy: love is one of the ways to reach the happiness.

Love is her natural right. 

_I watched her hands that emphasized_

_opinions with elegance_

_among the sudden resemblances_

_symbiotic intuitions the friendly transport_

Emeraude-hime puts the glass on the table and dries her eyes; she then takes breath. Once. Twice.

" I... I love Zagato."

She keeps silent, as if waiting my scolding: I catch her pale and cold hand to infuse her courage. It seems me logical that Emeraude-hime loves Sol Zagato, the man that is nearer her. Emeraude-hime resumes sobbing, new tears flow on her face, like a precious miniature.

" At the beginning I thought that my feeling was simple affection, the same that I feel for my brother, for you and for each inhabitant of Sephiro. But a day I become aware to wish his own happiness before the common one: this discovery put me a big fear on. I told me that it was temporary, because Lantis had left; I promised me that I would have tried to eliminate this feeling from my heart. But each time it went back with vehemence and imposed itself on my duties: I wasn't more able to pray with enough serenity."

Her hands follow each word and with the yearning melody of her voice offer me her torments, searching hopelessly to extort me a remedy.

I feel impotent, useless and oddly empty: I want to help her, really, and I want to find a different solution from hers. For how much I try hard, I am not able to think; I don't know what say, what do.

" Then I have tried to remove him physically. Do you remember when Ferio and I went back to Austina because our mother was sick? And when I have asked to Zagato to represent me to Pharen? That time I could have sent anybody else, but I sent him. However, when I didn't see him, when he was far from me, I felt so bad, I was not able to do anything and this was worse. I was so moody and Ferio thought that it was his guilt, because he didn't apply enough in the studies: that's why that now he is around who knows where. 

" Then an illumination came to me: for him I was only the Pillar of the world in which he lived, whom owed respect and loyalty, not love. This thought helped me to overcome the crisis: for some day the things went discreetly and I was relatively serene. But it was only the quiet after the storm."

Her confession halts in front of the crucial point of her tragedy. She chews a date nervously to calm down.

" They should be pass four months from that day, the more sublime and terrible day of my life. It was July 14th and I wasn't able to fall asleep, so I decided to going for a walk up to the Pond of Water-lilies to see the fireflies. While I was there, a strange idea came in my mind and I said to my reflection: ' Emi-hime, why for one hour don't we become big and enjoy us scaring the guards? ' "

Emeraude-hime smiles bitterly remembering that childish joke, she then half-closes her eyes and suddenly her voice is dyed with light passion.

" So my body of child changed in that of an adult woman and I laughed imagining the face of the guards while I imitated a ghost. Then I noticed that someone watched me: it was Zagato. He drew near and asked me the reason of that change; I begged him to keep for him what he had seen."

She keeps on her story without go in details and often she blushes modestly. Her embarrassment is palpable and infects me too: I sincerely hope that her behavior is exaggerated; I don't want to have a bad opinion of the Pillar. When she finishes, she looks in my eyes and says:

" Please, entrust Mokona to the Magic Knights and when everything will have finished, give them my apologies."

With these words, she is wrapped by a bundle of light that blinds me. When I reopen the eyes, where before Emeraude-hime was, I see a strange white creature, hairy and with a red gem on its forehead.

" Emeraude-hime."

_mixed with the incense the taste of a frugal meal_

_the memories faded by the time_

_though being like to many and many other people_

_she was special... special_

_I let me to seduce by her manias_

_I let me to seduce by her manias_

_I let me to seduce by her manias_

END

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I must admit that it is a fairly nice songfic, also because now I think to have understood better how a songfic should be written ^ _~!

Ok, good continuation and you remember leave a review. 

Ciao!

Pat-chan


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